Chapitre thématique

Réaliser des projets de vie

Pistes d'exploration

Mettre en scène

Brainstorm different things that animals learn growing up with a word bank, mind map or word cloud (for example: grizzly bear learning to catch salmon, elephants learning how to use trunks, horses learning how to walk, lions and wolves how to hunt, monkeys learning how to climb trees.) In teams, students choose one of the ideas presented in the brainstorm session. Teams role- play a story incorporating an animal character learning something and being supported by other animal life inspired by Mel Fell where an animal is learning a skill or ability. Teams can be paired up and share their play. Each team watches each other’s play and they give feedback on what they enjoyed.

Découvrir le visuel et s’en inspirer

Students will choose an animal of interest to them and gather information about the different skills and abilities their animal will need to develop as a baby. Students, inspired by the landscape format of the book. will sketch a flipbook, demonstrating a skill or ability that their baby animal will be acquiring, like Mel.

Relier à sa réalité

Think, pair, share: ask the students to think about the different things that they have learned that are essential to their survival and growth. What did they learn? How did they learn it? Did other people help them?

For a second think, pair, share, using a Venn diagram, the students compare the different classifications of baby animals (reptiles, mammals, birds, fish, insects) with human experience. How is it similar or different in the natural world?

fly!

Animal BFFs

Scaredy Squirrel

Mots-clés

Humour , Picture book , abilities , animal adaptations , animal behaviour , aquatic animals , baby animals , birds , courage , encouragement , flight , flying , growing up , illustrations (acrylic) , illustrations (mixed media) , illustrations (pencil) , learning new skills , overcoming adversity , persistence , perspectives , risks

Commentaire descriptif

This picture book uses space and direction to tell the story of an adventurous little bird. One day, when Mama is away, Mel, the baby bird, decides it’s time to fly. As her two concerned siblings look on, concerned, Mel overcomes her fear and falls, past a family of startled owls, past some squirrels that try to catch her, past a buzzing beehive, through a spiderweb (inadvertently liberating a fly) and past some ants and a ladybug. Each animal tries to catch the little bird but “she fell and fell,” finally plunging down into the water, where she catches a fish in her beak and flies out and back up the tree. The sequence of animals and the accrual of each species’ attempt to save the baby bird from herself builds suspense, which turns to triumph as she flies past each one in reverse order. Mel leaps into her proud mother’s arms back at their nest and drops the fish, which plunges down past all the animals as they attempt to stop this other fall, suggesting that the story could keep going indefinitely. The digitally assembled pencil, coloured pencil and acrylic paint illustrations show a pink-breasted bluebird diving serenely along a tree trunk, past panicked creatures that try to intervene: her brother and sister cover their eyes with their wings and the spider’s eyebrows float right off its head as it tries to pull Mel back up by her tail feathers. The animals are pleasantly anthropomorphized, from Mel’s acrobatic leap off the branch to the applause of a spider (with all eight “hands”) as the little bird zooms back up. The book is laid out horizontally, with Mel falling sideways along the pages until the middle of the story, when readers are instructed to turn the book around so the little bird can zip back up in the opposite direction. Warnings and later cheers from the other animals are presented as speech bubbles: “Blast,” “nuts,” “oof” call the squirrels, while the happy fly yelps, “I’m free!”